FALL SEVEN TIMES
by Ulquiorra9000
Chapter 16
"Grand Cenobite! We have finally captured the spy!"
In Elesh Norn's throne room deep in her spire-like fortress, a high priest gestured with one hand while two porcelain-armored golems dragged forth a human woman in black leather armor. The priest's doll-like, cracked mask showed no emotion, of course, but Elesh Norn still heard the priest's smug satisfaction.
Elesh Norn rose from her tall throne and took a few delicate steps forward, her deep red skirts trailing on the pitted metal floor. Her armored feet clanked, her tongue running along her teeth. "Well done. You two -" She pointed at the golems with a spindly finger. "Release the spy. I will speak to it."
The golems obeyed and stepped back, joining the throne room's guard force under the white banners. Meanwhile, Elesh Norn knelt before the spy, who was kneeling on the floor, her wrists bound together behind her back. The spy was breathing hard but showed no other signs of distress or concern.
Elesh Norn traced her claw-like finger along the spy's jawline. The agent was a moderately compleat human, her head unaltered except for veins of black mana under her skin. Her light armor was typical of a scout's, emphasizing flexibility and light weight over dedicated protection. The arcane symbol etched on the spy's right pauldron left no doubt of the spy's origins.
"Sheoldred never quits, does she?" Elesh Norn commented.
The scout was silent, her dark eyes looking anywhere but Elesh Norn's eyeless face.
The Grand Cenobite ran her fingers through the scout's ponytail. "You're not just scouting my troop positions, are you?"
Still no response.
Elesh Norn waited a moment, then abruptly stood, seized the scout's neck in her left hand, and lifted the human to eye level. "Where did you find her?" she demanded to the golems.
The golems hastily answered in the guttural Phyrexian language.
"I see." Elesh Norn curled her upper lip. "No doubt now. It seems that you were en route to collect data on the joint invasion of Kamigawa. You are blessed that my forced caught you before Jin-Gitaxias' men did. They would experiment all day on you, and they don't believe in using sensation-numbing chemicals first."
The scout wheezed for air, her eyes hard. "Wh-what you're doing..." she choked out.
Elesh Norn gently shook the scout. "I beg your pardon?"
The scout swallowed in Elesh Norn's vice-like grip. "Th-there can only be one... one reason you chose K-Kamigawa as your target! Sheoldred isn't... isn't stupid, you know." The woman grimaced and forced in another breath. "Y-your mission is heresy! Sheoldred won't stand for it, and Vorinclex i-isn't sympathetic to y-your cause, either. S-something has to be done."
Elesh Norn threw the scout onto the floor. "I do not care what that blackmailing spider-woman thinks!" she roared. "Did she send you out of envy? What Jin-Gitaxias and I are doing is visionary! Vorinclex is too concerned with food chains and marking territory with animal dung to see it, either!"
"It's heresy!" the scout shouted back. At her words, the porcelain-armored golems chattered angrily in Phyrexian but stayed in place.
"Listen," Elesh Norn said in a low, dangerous voice. "For all her scheming, Sheoldred is too foolish to see the future like Jin-Gitaxias and I have. His technology, and my head priestess, are making Phyrexian history! Radiah Albazan's mission is well underway. The Seven Steel Thanes will not stop us."
The scout laughed harshly. "Oh, I've seen Radiah around before. That stupid girl is gonna betray the essence of New Phyrexia! And even if you've caught me, there'll be others. Mark my words. Heresy's gotta be punished. And so it will."
Elesh Norn ground her teeth. She was nearly ready to move the Machine Orthodoxy into the grand plan's next step, but if Sheoldred really was upping her game, things could get... complicated, and fast.
"I will rise to any challenge, as will the Progress Engine," Elesh Norn finally said. "Two factions together fear nothing. One day, when New Phyrexia controls every world of existence, it will be due to our vision. Now... you won't see anything again."
At a gesture, the high priest stepped forward. He unsheathed a steel knife and applied it precisely to the scout's eyeballs and tongue. The scout's pained shouted schoed in the throne room as the priest worked.
Finally, the scout was escorted back into the wild, blind and mute. Her scouting days were over, but she could always remember Elesh Norn's words.
*o*o*o*o*
"This isn't like the other towns we've visited, Ayano. What is this place?"
Five days after the battle for Yamai-no-Zenju, Ayano had led her party across the rolling hills and open praerie of the Araba Plains, and now, the trio were nearing a large shrine in the center of a bustling town.
"One of the communication hubs of Kamigawa," Ayano said brightly as she led Azrael and Mizuki through the town's open front gates. Samurai in silver and blue armor patrolled the streets, the character for "Peace" drawn on their pauldrons. "You've never seen one of these?"
Azrael shook his head.
"There's only a few of 'em, but they're useful for armies and stuff," Mizuki added. She squeezed her way past two burly men in brown robes and conical straw hats. "That shrine up the road is a hive for messenger kami. The shrines were shut down during the Kami War, though."
"And they've been reactivated and very popular ever since," Ayano said. "We're just in time; from here, I can get a detailed update of my father's coalition, and where we're needed the most. It's much faster than using courier hawks."
"And it costs money, too," Mizuki mentioned. "My parents could never afford this even if they got here."
"Well, it'll be most useful now," Ayano said loftily. "Let's hurry."
The town itself was pretty ordinary, except for the many little white-blue kami flying to and from the shrine. One of them grazed Mizuki's cheek, a spirit composed of scroll paper, hands with crystalline claws, ribbon-like appendages, and a few white orbs of sacred mana orbiting the whole creature. It made a funny squeaking noise and drifted on.
"These kami seem very comfortable with humans," Azrael said, brushing one out of his bright red hair. The kami, however, chittered and landed again, running its little crystal claws through Azrael's long hair, its paper body twitching and rustling. Random characters appeared and disappeared on the papers, like "curious" and "strange" and "soft".
Ayano giggled. "I think it likes you."
"Does it?" Azrael scowled and tried to shoo it away, but the kami kept toying with his hair and prodding his ears.
"You ain't native to Kamigawa, so it's curious," Mizuki said with a grin. "It just wants to check you out, Azrael. Be cool."
Azrael sighed and allowed the inquisitive kami to sit on his head, still experimenting with his otherworldly hair. "I'm an alumni of Ezig Natum's greatest university, a master artificer, and explorer of worlds," he commented. "And now I've got a spirit on my head."
Mizuki tried and failed to contain her laughter.
There were other sights, too. There were many shops and mobile vendors here, representing races not often seen on the Plains. In fact, Mizuki spotted a cart where four akki goblins sold jewelry and polished stones and geodes. The long-nosed, shelled akki tried to wave over Ayano to do business with her, but the noble lady merely walked past. The akki lowered their flappy ears in disappointment.
There were also orochi, the snake people, around. The four-armed, scale-skinned humanoids were mainly selling armor or their own services as mercenaries and forest sages. Kitsune clerics offered theraputic magic and fortune-telling as well.
"Quite a variety," Azrael noted.
"Yes. Towns like this are essential to our world," Ayano said. "But there's few of them. This is only the second I've seen. I meant to bring us here days ago, but... you know..."
Mizuki felt a chill. She knew exactly what Ayano meant: the Phyrexians. It seemed like every creek, river, and lake ran dark with the oil, and countless chrome-plated golems, cyborg samurai, and perplexing artifact monsters patrolled the shores. And even though Yamai-no-Zenju had been saved, more towns had fallen to the invaders, and Ayano's party had given those towns a wide berth. Several hours per day had been added to the travel time to avoid Phyrexian scouting parties. But the Phyrexians had sent squadrons of metallic thopters to the skies, making stealth even more challenging.
We're running out of time.
The kami on Azrael's head perked up and flew off just as Ayano reached one of the line of customers leading up to the shrine's three main entrances. Each entrance had a white-painted torii gate, and sacred ribbons hung from the gates' central wood beams. Many people, wealthy and poor, stood in line while a few kitsune samurai maintained order with gentle but firm hands.
"Uh... how long is this gonna take?" Mizuki complained.
Ayano tossed her hair. "Not long. Allow me."
She got a guard's attention. "I am Lady Ayano Hatsumoto Kirinji. I need to use this shrine at once on my father's behalf. Here are a few papers as proof..." She drew a few small scrolls from her robes and handed them over.
The kitsune samurai nodded. "Very well. You and your vassals may follow me."
Mizuki had given up on correcting everyone who thought that she and Azrael were Ayano's servants. Instead, she and the others followed the kitsune past the central line and into the large shrine's main hall. In here, jade statues, antique gongs, and wall scrolls served as decor, and kami flitted among the patrons already inside. Some patrons, however, used the messenger kami in private rooms.
"In here." The kitsune guard bowed politely and slid aside a door to admit Ayano's party into a private room, furnished with a low table, seating cushions, and a tea set. Mizuki waited until the door was shut, then sat at the table with everyone else.
Ayano poured everyone tea and took a sip. "This is usually a slow and ceremonious process," she explained, "but today, I find myself anxious to finish."
Azrael sipped his tea and made a face.
"Don't like the flavor?" Mizuki teased him, also taking a sip. It tasted fine to her!
Azrael merely scooted his mug away.
From a hole in the ceiling descended a large paper-and-ribbons kami, which hovered over the table's center, sacred blue mana orbs drifting around it.
"To my father, daimyo Hiroshi Kirinji," Ayano said in a loud, clear voice. She rested her tense fists on her lap.
The kami bobbed twice as though nodding with its whole body.
"What is it going to do?" Azrael asked.
"My father has a scroll blessed by the kami," Ayano told him. "It's a rare piece, and very useful for quick messaging like this. Most major leaders have them."
Then, the kami unrolled a long scroll from its body, and characters appeared there as though written by an invisible ink brush.
"AYANO! I AM SO GLAD TO HEAR FROM YOU," the characters read. Mizuki read them aloud for Azrael's benefit.
Ayano smiled. "Hello, father. I'm in a messenger shrine. I believe that I have made significant progress in recruiting local forces to our coalition. Have you heard the news of Yamai-no-Zenju?"
"OF COURSE," the characters read. "TAI-SA KOKUDA IS A SIGNIFICANT ASSET. BUT HIS MEN WON'T HAVE ANY MORE TIME TO REST. NEITHER WILL ANY OF US."
Ayano's breath caught in her throat and she leaned forward. Her eyes reflected the kami's sacred blue orbs. "What do you mean? What happened?"
"OSAMU AND MY OTHER ADVISORS HAVE DETERMINED THAT WE HAVE THE STRENGTH TO MARCH ON MINAMO ACADEMY," came daimyo Kirinji's response. "THE COALITION MUST STRIKE AND RELIEVE THE ACADEMY'S DEFENSES AGAINST THE PHYREXIANS. OR ELSE THE SCHOOL WILL FALL."
Azrael tensed when Mizuki finished translating. His brown eyes flashed. "Are we to help them as well?"
Ayano repeated the question. Daimyo Kirinji responded at once. "ONLY IF YOU SO CHOOSE, DEAR DAUGHTER. WE HAVE RALLIED MANY TO OUR CAUSE, BUT MANY OTHERS HAVE ALREADY FALLEN OR DISAPPEARED. YOU MAY TRY TO RESCUE THEM, OR RISK JOINING MY FORCES TO BREAK THE SIEGE. JUST PLEASE BE CAREFUL, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE TO DO. HIGURE CAN'T SAVE YOU FROM EVERYTHING."
Ayano bowed her head, clearly deep in thought. Mizuki didn't dare interrupt or make a sound, so she quietly sipped her tea again. It didn't seem to taste as good anymore.
Finally, Ayano cleared her throat. "I will join the coalition at Minamo Academy. Perhaps the sight of me will rally the men? And I've grown strong, Father. Strong enough to save the Academy. We can't lose it!"
"I SEE," Hiroshi's answer said. "I WILL PRAY FOR YOU, AYANO."
"Mizuki and Azrael are with me, too," Ayano added. She glanced at them, and they nodded. "They will help me. They promise."
Hiroshi took a moment to answer. "MAKE HASTE, THEN, DAUGHTER. TAI-SA KOKUDA AND THE OTHER MERCENARY COMMANDERS EXPECT A HUGE FORCE OF PHYREXIANS. WE DON'T FULLY KNOW WHAT WE WILL FACE THERE. IT WILL BE THE STUFF OF LEGENDS."
Ayano swallowed. "I expected no less. I... I love you, Father."
"AND I, YOU. BE WELL, AYANO."
The scroll went blank again, and the kami retreated through the roof's entry hole.
Ayano stood. "We don't have a moment to lose," she said with renewed vigor. She rested a hand on her katana's hilt. "We'll take the fastest cart we can to the Academy's waterfall. Are you both ready?"
Mizuki stood with Azrael. "Hell yeah," she said firmly.
She managed to conceal her terror. Somehow.